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At the George

The George is probably the fanciest hotel we will be at this vacation. (It won best awards in NZ as well as being a favorite with Conde Nast Traveler, etc) Though we still have the Canyons Lodge in Queenstown, which has some amazing scenery, the George here in Christchurch is quite luxurious, and our room is huge…certainly compared to the previous two nights’ digs! Ava’s napping now, after having a great time in the very large bath tub here. We’re having New Year’s dinner at 50 on Park, the restaurant here at the hotel, so no more driving! Woo-hoo!

Our lunch at Pegasus Bay winery was really great…fish carpaccio, waygu beef carpaccio, fantastic fresh homemade ricotta cheese, mozarella from Italy (now that’s a trip!) and more…Ava met up with a girl her age and had a nice playtime. Of course, the Mom, an Aussie, was more than happy to dump her kid with us. Their attitude with kids is the same we found in France, which is: enjoy your meal and ditch your kid with anyone around if at all possible–waitresses, strangers, doesn’t matter. They never bring toys or activities for their kids, so Ava’s stash of markers and toys was a huge bonanza to this little kid she played with.

The scenery from Kaikoura to Pegasus Bay was quite nice for the first half hour or so, hugging the rugged coastline. Then it moved to the huge prairie scenes we’ve gotten so used to, that now we’re even bored with those spectacular mountainous backdrops. Ungrateful, aren’t we?

Looking forward to just hangin’ here for a couple of days before we have two days of long drives ahead of us. The bar in the lobby is stocked with Belvedere, so I’m a happy man. And we’ll be doing room service for breakfast tomorrow, you can bet.

There is a family-friendly fireworks and New Years celebration in Christchurch tonight, but it’s all at midnight and I know that I’m not really interested in all that when I’ve got this amazing room full of wine and bubbly right here. What my two girls will want…well, that’s a different story.